Volvo's trusty five-cylinder engine has been stroked from 2.4 to 2.5 liters, increasing the horsepower from 197 to 208. A smaller turbocharger helps raise torque from 194 foot-pounds to 236 foot-pounds at 4500 rpm, with most of that oomph available at 1500 rpm, claims Volvo, in order to achieve a 5000-pound towing capacity. We found those 208 horsepower to be plenty for the real world, and its 24 mpg combined gas mileage is excellent for that much power.

But engines only produce power, while transmissions...well, they transmit it. And the transmission in the 2.5T is very sweet. It's a Geartronic five-speed automatic, with a manual mode. We used it to test the engine's torque, and we doubt Volvo's claim that the torque is all there at 1500 rpm, but it may not matter because acceleration is, at least when you floor it.

That's what we did, at 1500 rpm in fifth gear and in manual mode, and it stayed in fifth gear and accelerated ever so slowly. Then we tried automatic mode, and when we floored it at 1500 rpm the transmission downshifted all the way to third, the tach jumped, and XC90 eagerly zoomed away. Obviously, the electronic transmission sensor didn't believe there was enough torque at 1500 rpm. Moral to the story: avoid manual mode for full acceleration, and trust the tranny to shift itself. And if you just want pulling power without full throttle, you can use the manual mode to downshift, if you need to.

One computer chip that you can't trust, though, is the rev limiter. It intervenes too subtly and too late, evidently by slowly stealing power. The charts say the power peaks at 5000 rpm, but the engine keeps pulling slowly to 5700, and then it struggles and strains, all the way up to 6500 before the rev limiter puts a complete halt to things. To get the most out of the engine, using it without abusing it, you simply have to upshift around 5200 or 5400, while ignoring the redline at 6100.

The T6 also uses a new Geartronic transmission, but it's only a four-speed because there wasn't room in the engine compartment to fit the five-speed. The heavier four-speed transmission shifts more slowly and less smoothly than the 2.5T's five-speed.

The six-cylinder engine is neither as smooth nor as quiet as the five-cylinder engine. There was a distinct engine vibration between 45 and 50 mph in third gear, at about 2000 rpm. And although 268 horsepower and twin turbos sounds hot, we weren't impressed; the engine sometimes felt like it was working hard, with that four-speed. However, we were impressed with how silky smooth the XC90 felt at 80 mph, overall, and its 21 mpg combined gas mileage is good.

We won't address the T6 ride and handling. There's a good chance that what ends up in the showroom will be tidier than what we experienced. Volvo says it should feel like the 2.5T, but the T6 uses stiffer front springs and speed-sensitive power steering, so it's bound to feel different, and those were the two areas we had issues.

It should be kept in mind that in any road test, ride and handling are affected by equipment, including tires and wheel diameters. For example, the two-wheel-drive XC90 might not ride or handle like our all-wheel-drive test model, nor might a five-seat AWD, because seven-seat models have self-leveling rear shocks.

The chassis of the XC90 closely follows the design of the V70 wagon, but it's wider and the components are beefier. Our route included one long and remote leg of rough, narrow and twisty pavement, and, with two passengers, we fairly thrashed the 2.5T, and it eagerly ate up the road.

Here, we used the big ventilated disc brakes hard, and manual mode in the transmission a lot, upshifting and downshifting as if it were a regular five-speed. A few times we flew into gullies that surely would have bottomed the nose of other SUVs, but the XC90 took that too. The XC90 didn't quite handle at the sports-car level of an X5, but the power rack-and-pinion steering was tight, and the body sway under hard cornering was minimal. We activated the DSTC a few times, which applied the brakes at one wheel without cutting the throttle, although we aren't sure if it was the gyroscopic sensor or traction sensors that triggered the system.

The ride was very good, maybe even unique: stiff at the wheels, but not in the cabin. It didn't exactly absorb the ridges and bumps, because you could feel the suspension working over them; but it didn't transfer any harshness to the arms or seat of the pants at all. Speed bumps in particular were interesting; it was as if the suspension challenged them and hammered back, protecting us from jouncing even when we hit them at 15 mph.